Sohla El-Waylly

Early life and education Sohla Muzib was raised in Los Angeles in a Bangladeshi-American family who owned a Baskin-Robbins store. She continued in the restaurant industry by working for Outback Steakhouse.

She went to University of California, Irvine, where she studied economics and worked at a Cheesecake Factory on the side.

Beginning in 2008, El-Waylly attended The Culinary Institute of America (CIA). She says that while at CIA, she was sexually harassed by a dean, and when she spoke up a female dean told her, "That's what happens in the real world. You better get used to it."

In March 2016, El-Waylly and her husband opened a diner called Hail Mary in Brooklyn, which attracted favorable reviews. However, an early review from Scott Lynch for Quick Bites also stated, "I worry about Hail Mary because it's an ambitious, almost special-occasion restaurant wrapped inside a burger-and-shake joint." In June 2020, a photo of Bon Appétit editor-in-chief Adam Rapoport in brownface resurfaced online and sparked widespread criticism. During an emergency company-wide Zoom meeting, El-Waylly called for Rapoport to step down. She then publicly accused the magazine of discriminating towards employees of color, claiming they were subject to lesser pay than their non-minority counterparts and called for BIPOC chefs to receive fair titles, salaries, and compensation for video appearances. In August 2020, El-Waylly announced on her Instagram that she would no longer appear in videos on the magazine's YouTube channel due to continued lack of progress by Condé Nast Entertainment in resolving the issues that had arisen, though she would continue to contribute recipes and articles to the magazine and website. Soon after, she announced she had completely severed ties with Bon Appétit.

Her series titled Stump Sohla premiered on September 24, 2020, which was hosted on Andrew Rea's Babish Culinary Universe YouTube channel. El-Waylly said she decided to work with Rea because she would have more creative control and direct cut of the video revenue. "I just really don't want to be a prop," she said in an interview with New York magazine. In 2025, El-Waylly publicly announced that she was no longer working with The New York Times.

In 2021, El-Waylly was one of Time 100's Next list.

On October 31, 2023, El-Waylly released her first cookbook titled, Start Here: Instructions for Becoming a Better Cook. In 2024, the book won a James Beard Award, as well as an IACP Award for Book Design.

El-Waylly is a judge on the HBO Max culinary reality competition The Big Brunch, along with Dan Levy and Will Guidara.

Personal life El-Waylly lives in New York City with her husband, fellow chef Hisham "Ham" El-Waylly. They met while they were both attending the Culinary Institute of America. In September 2023, they announced the birth of their first child.